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Djinns, Dakini, Kindoki and other spooks that go Bwaa in the night…

The Anna Raccoon Archives

by Anna Raccoon on October 8, 2014

Back in 2011, Tim Loughton, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, set up a round table meeting of ‘experts’.

The experts sat there and told him horrific tales of witchcraft, spirit possession, demons or the devil, the evil eye or djinn’s, dakini, kindoki, ritual or muti murders and use of fear of the supernatural as used to control and abuse children.

Tim did the only thing a Minister could do – he set up a working party to investigate these tales. The working party hired more experts:

Pretty impressive, huh? They talked and they talked, and meanwhile the problem got worse. Whilst they were talking there was a 100% increase in 2012, a 20% increase in 2013, and a 12% increase this year. Perhaps there is some good done by talking about it.

What they were earnestly looking at was ‘faith based’ abuse. A very narrow definition of ‘faith based’ abuse.

This plan does not include in scope child abuse within culture or faith contexts in general, for example female genital mutilation or forced marriage. Nor does this plan consider child abuse in faith settings which are incidental to the abuse, for example, sexual abuse by paedophiles in a religious community.

Nope, the experts were concerned with:

Examples include children being dunked in a bath, swung around and smacked to “drive out the devil”.

Now I am not suggesting that children, or at least all children, should be dunked in a bath, swung around and smacked to ‘drive out the devil’, though it might improve some of them. Just that during the same ten year period which has been studied to produce these ‘horrific examples of faith based abuse‘ (actually 148 of them over ten years, or 14.8 per year) – some 400,000 children (according to the NSPCC) were hideously abused – presumably by Richard Dworkin worshipping, heathen, agnostic, barbarian, infidels of no faith whatsoever…

Which suggests to me that you are less at risk of being dunked in a bath and smacked to drive out the devil if your parents firmly believe in dakini, evil eyes, and shamans, and wouldn’t dream of going to bed before sticking a few more pins in the djinn on the mantlepiece.

Back in 2011, once again, the Metropolitan Police swung into action with ‘Operation Violet’ which gave indicators as to how ‘professionals’ could spot signs of ‘faith based’ child abuse which included:

A child reporting that they are or have been accused of being ‘evil’, and/or that they are having the ‘devil beaten out of them’.

Apart from producing some colourful headlines this morning – two years of study has now produced a new 36 page report detailing the training, cross-discipline co-operation, and supervision needed for a professional to recognise that when a child reports that they are ‘having the devil beaten out of them’, it might be an idea to tell someone…and you shouldn’t let ‘cultural sensitivities’ stand in your way.

Meanwhile, a cure for the ills of Rotherham appear as far away as ever.

I can’t sack myself without prior notice. I’d bankrupt myself with the unfair dismissal clause. Undergoing a stressful relocation and trying to rebuild the site at the same time – not a good combination.

Looking at the collected list of assembled ‘experts’, I’m reminded of that old proverb about too many cooks etc. Maybe they should have simply recommended the playing of ‘Out Demons Out’ by the Edgar Broughton Band as a solution?

What an interesting article. A pity there aren’t more like this in the usual news sources!

A very narrow definition of ‘faith based’ abuse. The high-profile examples given in the BBC article are of African origin, while there seem to be a few African names in the expert group, three apparently from Congo. If they’re referring to abuse mainly by people of particular African faiths and/or from particular African countries, or associated with particular faith groups from particular African countries, why use such a broad term?

Sadly I think the persecution of children because they are child witches is far more real than Satanic Abuse, at least in West and Central Africa where it largely seems to originate. There was a very good t.v programme about it last year, I think, with some terrifying interviews with the battered child victims. As with genital mutilation and forced marriage the alarm bells about it coming to this country have been sounded first by people from those communities, so I tend to believe that it is a problem.

The incidence here may still be quite low, but the cases which do surface from time to time seem to be on the extreme and deadly end of the child cruelty spectrum. Why wouldn’t we discourage it?

Not exactly a revelation though is it?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/472418.stm anymore than FGM which was outlawed thirty years ago, not that anyone had any intention of ever applying the law. Forced marriage aint exactly new either, shotgun-style or not.

Its the ridiculous handling of these issues thats the problem, Ive sat in my fair share of meetings with a wide cross section of public sector organisations, and every single time I’m always reminded of monty pythons “the life of brian”

“Your death will stand as a landmark in the continuing struggle to liberate the parent land from the hands of the Roman imperialist aggressors (excluding those concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture and any other Romans contributing to the welfare of Jews of both sexes and hermaphrodites…)”

I wish I had a euro for everytime Ive seen an equivelent email, report or memo from the people alledgedly managing bits of the UK

Well at least we have a 36 page report (which I havnt read yet, but I will) but I’d wager I could take a pretty acurate guess at what it might say, and furthermore, probably write something very similar in less than a day or so without having the slightest knowledge of, or experience in the subject under discussion.

We would have the problem if we’d have continued to burn witches…. I’d suggest it to the CSA industry representatives if they hadnt all simultaneously blocked me on twitter

“I wish I had a euro for every time Ive seen an equivalent email, report or memo from the people allegedly managing bits of the UK”

You are right, it was very noticeable, reading through the NHS reports, that they had been written to a template. I’m thinking of setting up an automatic report template to which you can just add the key word of the day…..

beatings in schools where commonplace when I was a child. (and it never did me any harm (although many would argue otherwise))

to be fair, I cant recall anyone being repeatedly whacked over the head with a big stick. A wide range of stick lengths and thicknesses where used, although blows to the head where generally confined to board dusters being thrown, or the odd punch. When very young I did see kids being held upside down by the feet and having their heads repeatendly dropped onto woodern floors, but that kind of thing gets difficult as children get older.

Thankfully I didnt have to learn the Koran in Arabic… languages (and spelling) arnt my strong point but I did once get 106% in a religious studies exam. I tell you this NOT to boast, but as an example of similar stupidity by those teaching religious education in English schools. An exam was set, and taken by 130 kids, who scored appallingly. The schools solution to ensure an adequate pass rate was to arbitarily add 30% to everyones result.

The deluded fool responsible for teaching RE was quite happy to an extra 30 to the 76% I’d legitimately achieved (god only knows how)

Maybe this sort of stupidity is just commonplace amongst those teaching religous studies regardless of the religion concerned. On mature reflection, perhaps rather than the school fiddling the exam results, giving the odd random beating to focus the concentration might have been a better solution for all concerned in the long run. In all seriousness, if I had to choose between a school disiplining children, or simply fiddling results, If take the former

At a push, I’d also probably argue that a great deal of the material I was taught at school was about as much use as the ability to recite passages from the Koran in Arabic, possibly even less so, Im sure there are situations where such a skill might be useful

But, on balance, hitting kids with sticks as a regular means of encouragement / punishment shouldnt be encouraged. I think theres probably a law that covers that sort of thing, it just needs applying